Capital city auction activity is set to rise this week, with 1,817 homes scheduled to go under the hammer, up 4.5% from the 1,739 auctions held last week. This week last year, 2,059 homes were auctioned across the combined capitals.

Melbourne is the busiest auction market this week, with 753 homes scheduled for auction. This week's expected auction activity is 2.2% higher than the 737 auctions held last week but is -16.8% lower than the 905 auctions held during the same week last year.

There are 687 homes scheduled to go under the hammer in Sydney this week, up 20.5% from the 570 auctions held last week and 4.2% above the 659 held this week last year.

Brisbane has 136 homes scheduled for auction this week, down -33.0% from the number of auctions held last week (203) and -28.8% less than the 191 homes auctioned this time last year. In Adelaide, 131 homes are set to go under the hammer this week, while 97 auctions are set to occur in Canberra, almost 75% above the number of auctions held the week prior (56). In Perth, 11 homes are scheduled for auction this week, while two homes are currently scheduled to go under the hammer in Tasmania.

While auction activity typically cools through winter, the coming weeks will be a good measure of whether the RBA’s May rate hike will dissuade potential vendors from selling or if the current upswing in values will fuel higher than average auction activity through the quieter winter months.

Last week’s final clearance rate was 66.2%, up 1.3 percentage points on the previous week’s result of 64.9%.